What is Clientophilic Freelancing?

Cleintophilic freelancing is an ebook aimed at freelancers including graphic and web designers who need a bit of help with their sales skills (ie they are clientophobic). It is not going to help you promote your design work, but once you do get a meeting set up aims to help you convert it into a live design job with better sales techniques.

Lets face it the majority of us designers are not great sales people. I think it is far easier for someone not actually doing the work to sell – they generally don’t think about the technical problems in the brief or the timing, they just listen and say, yes, we can do that (and leave us to curse when they get the job!).

This book looks at the psychology of different types of people and gives you ideas of the best ways to approach each of them. Along with this there are very general tips which should make any potential client feel at ease. A few of the techniques you may have heard of but I am sure there will be some you haven’t. For example one technique suggested is to repeat back what the client says. For example if they were saying they were looking for a very corporate typographic logo, which must be blue and include a given strapline when they had finished telling you about it you would say Ok When I get back to the office I will sort out a quote for your logo, I understand it needs to be very corporate and typographic based and include your strapline and retain your companies existing blue. This apparently makes the client feel like you are listening to them and have understood the given information. Its funny it’s something I know I actually do at meetings, though I do it more to make sure I have understood all the information correctly (so I am doing something right).

Personally I wouldn’t be comfortable to try out some of the tips straight away in case I made it too obvious and the book itself recommends you practice the techniques out on friends and family first – obviously without telling them to see if it works. (Who knows, maybe you can use the techniques to talk one of your friends into buying you dinner )

Should I get Clientophilic Freelancing?

If you are new or nervous about meeting with potential clients or are struggling to convert a meeting into a sale then Clientophilic Freelancing will probably help you.

If you need help with promoting yourself to find new clients in the first place see my review of 10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion for Creatives

Learning graphic design online from home with video training

Lynda.com now offers video training in Graphic Design NOT JUST how to use the Software

You may have already heard of http://www.lynda.com they have been offering video based courses in many different design programs which is great but they didn’t really have anything to teach you the principles of design. Fortunately this has all changed and they now include courses such as

• Designing a Logo Hands-On workshop
• Designing Business Cards Hands-On Workshop
• Designing a Brochure Hands-On Workshop
• Designing an Event Poster Hands-On Workshop
• Designing a Newsletter Hands-On Workshop

Along with this they also feature videos of creative inspirations where artists and designers discuss their work. Lynda.com offers subscriptions starting at $25 month where you can watch their entire video library. Lynda.com is available on a subscription basis of $25 month to watch all their video collection. You can get a free 24 hour pass to lynda.com here

Knowledge City also offers online video training in Graphic Design you can study at home

Less well known than Lynda.com http://www.knowledgecity.com also offers training in graphic design as well as teaching you how to use the software

They have a video courses called

• Graphic Design Principles – which teaches you all about structure, grids, balance and colour theory
• Design and Layout Tutorials

Knowledgecity also gives you access to all its videos for a subscription of $29 month

Learning graphic design using sample design briefs

Once you have a good understanding of design and layout the best thing to do is start practicing, on graphic design blog I have a section with sample design briefs which you can try or alternatively you can write your own briefs.

Graphic design software

Try to learn the main graphic design packages if you can afford to, most give educational dicounts or at least let you download trial versions. For print Quark or Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. For Web you might look at Dreamweaver or Flash or just use a text editor. If you can’t afford the main packages you could look at open source options shown in the video below.

Getting help learning graphic design

There are a few graphic design forums if you need someone to help you. Take a look at my design resources page (near the bottom of the page) where you will find a list of design forums. My design resources page also has a good list of places you can find cheap and free royalty free images to use in your designs.

Keeping up with what’s happening in graphic design

There are a lot of great graphic design blogs that provide excellent information to help you learn graphic design as do graphic design books. Also don’t forget printed magazines, the majority include tutorials Computer Arts, Net Magazine, Web Designer Magazine, Creative Review (inspiration rather than tutorials).

With a lot of hard work you can teach yourself graphic design

My best time for running 2 miles is 10 minutes and 13 seconds. But before that, I did it in 15 minutes and 45 seconds. It took me 4 weeks to get that low.

I improved by monitoring and adjusting:

• Arrival times at certain waypoints
• Running strike (toe vs. mid)
• Bursting interval (burst on the last waypoint)
• Breathing pattern (deep vs. shallow)
• Cadence

I consistently drove my times down by a minute or more each week because I knew the intricacies of the route and of myself.

So how does my experience relate to you designers?

In the Information Age, obviously information flows freely. And in that flow information can take on the form of words and even visual art. Information is aggregated, channeled, packaged, repackaged, socialized, and consumed.

Here is an example flow of information:

After posting your artwork on your website it gets…

• Searched by Google, Yahoo, and Bing
• Gets Tweeted by curious web surfers
• Tweeters see the Tweet
• Gets Tweeted again by there 2000+ followers and their 2000+ followers
• Then someone emails to their friend
• Then it gets forwarded to other friends
• Spreads on FaceBook
• Blogged about by art aficionados which gets sent out by an RSS feed
• And finally someone sees and prints your design on t-shirts without your permission and makes a lot of money

From a designer’s context, when you follow and monitor this flow you’ll begin to ask questions (after all humans are curious).

• Where does the information go?
• How does my design get spread and consumed?
• What is their reaction?
• How do they feel about the design?
• What brought visitors to your client?
• What design elements are they attracted to?
• Is the design understandable?
• Will they come back for more?
• Is it popular?
• Is my client seeing favorable results?
• How does my design fare against their competitors or even my competitors?

Why is this important? Because it tells you what is or what’s not working. Just measuring revenue is not enough.

Information can be monitored especially on the web. And in each sector, market, and industry there are sets of metrics that determine successes and failures. Find out what metrics matter to your client when you consult them. Then you can draw out what metrics relate to what design elements.

If you are not doing this already, start now. AND if your client is not doing this already, it will make your job an up hill battle because the Attention Age is upon us. If you’re designs are not capable of getting attention, you’re more likely to fail.

About Jae – he has intense interests in art and business. He has founded KnowledgeCity.com, an online education company for the general market. Jae has been a designer of all sorts for 15 years, runs two other business, and has never been to college.”

You can start sharing your screen once you start voice or text chat with one of your contacts, see below:

How it could work for your design clients
You could talk through design projects with a client. Instead of just sending through a PDF this gives you the ability to point with your mouse at various design elements or even alter things live on screen while talking with your design clients. Of course if the client has a pdf of the design they can also then show it on their screen and point to things they want to change. This could be especially useful when working with non local clients.

How this could be useful for working with other designers
The share screen feature allows you to show your designer friends/colleagues your projects to get feedback instantly. You can also use it to show someone live how to do something – a mini live tutorial. For example my friend had never used Cyberduck so I showed her how to set it up and she followed what I was doing on screen.

2. My name: Mark Lightfoot

3. Company Name: Mangion & Lightfoot Ltd

4. Web Address: http://www.mangionlightfoot.com

5. City, country – Naxxar, Malta

6. How you Start the Day – ie. Get up what time, travel?
Depending on the scholastic calendar I’m either up at 6 to take my daughter to school, or up at 7 to take her for tennis training… either way I am up with the birds and making tea/breakfast for the family. I live in an ancient house in the middle of Zebbug – a village in the heartland of Malta. Bells, yells and smells was how Lord Byron described Malta… and he was not far off even for today. The sound of the village church bells often wake me and if it’s not the bells, the yells and smells of village life are not far behind. I drive to school to drop off said daughter and then on to the office – usually getting in at around 8am.

7. First jobs – coffee! I then check the mail for invoices, statements or payments and look through the correspondence to check if there is anything that needs attention. I run my own company along with my business partner of 12 years, Matthew (the Mangion). Then its a quick check on email – I have to be careful not to get bogged down in too many website visits as it can easily eat up the morning. I try to clip links that I want to follow for later on. I’ll then go through the job management system we have seeing what projects are on and what tasks need doing.

8. The morning is taken up with project work – that will be either artwork production, design concepts, client meetings, concept briefings with the account managers, production meetings etc., Every day is different. Sometimes if we are doing a signage project I will have to be on site at an installation, or it might be out to a photoshoot, a presentation or a pitch. Lunchtime is sacrosanct at Mangion & Lightfoot as each employee takes it in turn to cook for the other members of the team. What started out as a practical way to meet the eating needs of everyone has become a cornerstone of our company ethos. Lunch has become an extension of our philosophy and a way for the company to team build on a daily basis!
After lunch there’s more project work, or meetings… it all depends on what’s on the cards and which clients are on the go.

9. Evening – Work finishes at around 7pm most evenings at which time I head for home. I try and leave my laptop at the office apart from weekends so I don’t ‘take work home’ during the week. That’s generally scuppered though as I’ve got an iPhone and I can still do emails etc … and to cap it all I’ve got about 4 Macs at home (wife’s, daughter’s, etc!). I’ll get home in time to see the kids into bed, maybe read a story, Catch up with my wife and the kids’ day. I’ll have supper with a nice glass of wine – sometimes catching up on TV or reading. Bed around 11.

10. What you love about your job /course – I love the variety of my job and the work life balance that being a designer in Malta gives me. We’ve got great clients, a great office atmosphere and a great team.

11. What you hate about your job /student life – There’s nothing I hate about my job – I would say that its frustrating sometimes because working in a small country does not afford you the opportunities more mature markets offer…(or the big budget clients!!) but that is the very small downside to working and living in one of the most wonderful countries in the world!

To take part in – A day in the life, please read this post

In Safari go into your preferences and under the advanced tab you will see an option to click a check box for show develop menu in menu bar.

Then when you are using safari go to the top menu which says develop and scroll down to web inspector.

Just as with Firebug the web inspector panel will appear at the bottom of your Safari browser. Use the magnifying glass icon to select elements and view its HTML and CSS.

If you still want to stick with firebug I have also just found out that Firebug Lite will work with Safari though I haven’t tried this out.

2. My name: Lisa Simmonds

3. Company Name: LKS Designs

4. Web Address: http://www.lisasimmonds.moonfruit.co.uk

5. City, country – Based in Essex, UK

6. How you Start the Day – ie. Get up what time, travel?
I get up about 10am, one of the biggest perks of working from home!

7. First jobs – Then I immediately turn on my Mac and check my emails. After that I check Facebook (it’s not slacking – it’s networking!) Then back to the emails to reply to anything interesting and check on any jobs I might have been sent.

8. The rest of your work day – Then I make a cup of tea and start working. After that it depends on the amount of work I have. I either work on whatever project I have for the rest of the day or start looking for more work or prepare promotional material for events I have coming up. Today for example I worked on some book layouts, then started creating a flyer to advertise myself at a book fair I’m attending at the end of the month. At some point I break away from the computer to eat and maybe even pop to the shops!

9. Evening – In the evening I might still be working, or I might go to the cinema or theatre, see friends for coffee (or something stronger!), or just stay in and watch a film. Normally afterwards I’ll go back on the computer and do things like write this ’til 2 or 3am (it is now 3.20am!).

10. What you love about your job /course – I love that I can do what I like when I like. If I want to see friends in the afternoon and then work until 3am and get up at 11am – I can!

11. What you hate about your job /student life – I hate the fact that sometimes I don’t think I’ll get enough work to pay the bills.

To take part in – A day in the life, please read this post

1. Go to your Google Docs Account (or open up a free google account if you haven’t already got one). Google docs now lets you upload pdfs so you can read them online which is pretty neat. You can upload all your pdf ebooks and organise them into folders. Slight problem though, this is great if you have an internet connection, but what about if you don’t. This is where the Good reader App comes in.

2. The Good Reader App lets you link up to your Google docs account and download any PDFs from there to your Ipad. You can then organise them into folders and read them whenever you want without an internet connection. The Good Reader App has a nicer interface than google docs for reading your PDFs too. Of course you can easily delete PDFs from your IPad when you have read them too (while still keeping a copy in Google docs)

The Designer’s Graphic Stew

What is Graphic Stew

Graphic Stew is a book which basically breaks up design elements that you would have on the printed page and shows you lots of different things you can do with them. For example there are pages devoted to possible grid systems, colour pallettes, typeface combinations and options amongst many other items. At the beginning of the book there is also a very good grounding into page layout and good composition that would be ideal for newbies.

First Impressions of Graphic Stew

I have to admit my first impressions of Graphic Stew were not good. The cover was ok but inside the layout and style is very dated, I am not sure if this is intentional as they are playing on the idea of a menu or recipe book. I even turned to look at the first print date as I expected it to be the nineties – but read on the content was better than the look.

What’s Good about the Graphic Stew Design Book

Are you ever working on a design and get stuck in a rut with your layout or trying to get something to look a bit different then Graphic Stew could help you be a little bit more experimental. I know personally that layout for layouts sake is not my favourite thing (I prefer conceptial work) so when a client gives me some text and a few pics I sometimes sit and sketch and think ummm… what can I do different with it this time. This is where Graphic Stew could come in handy, perhaps for a bit of inspiration for a way I could use typography for a blown quote or a heading maybe using a leading symbol or an abstract background. The elements in Graphic Stew may not be works af art (or to be copied directly) in themselves but there to stimulate your creative brain to try out new things. Those small things that can make a difference to your design work are covered too – like different ways of styling folios on your pages.

Graphic Design Examples in Graphic Stew

Nearer the back of the Graphic Stew book are actual pieces of design work with an explanation to the layouts. This is a bit of a mixed bag again, with some of the work looking quite dated.

Should you buy Graphic Stew

If you want a graphic design book which is something you can flick through when you are stuck for what to do on a page layout this book is well worth checking out. If however you are looking for a graphic design book with beautiful typography and imagery this is not the book for you.

Examples of page indexing

Examples of page grids

• When you feel all the other designs are looking prettier than yours
• When you see a brochure and say – Why the “bleep” would you make typography that small – I would need a magnifying glass to read that (or my reading glasses). Thinking about it why did I used to laugh when someone suggested making body copy 12pt – it’s just perfectly sensible.
• When you want to get rid of your old Mac and get a newer more attractive model
• When you want an Ipad because – why?… well that still makes you hip doesn’t it?
• When you still have a fax machine in the corner of your office just in case anyone ever wants to send some amends through
• When you’re thinking about changing to Radio 2 for your background office music – because Radio 1 just repeats itself all day and what’s the “bleeping” dance stuff all about anyway
• When you still have a can of spray mount in the cupboard and have a little reminiscent sniff of its lid when you see it
• When you still think tranny means a 5″ x 4″ or 35mm slide you need to get scanned
• When you still love quark – and you don’t care what anyone else says, you know you’re right

So how did you do?

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